Gunman entered school via open door

Tuesday

Dec 31, 2013 at 12:01 AMDec 31, 2013 at 11:35 AM

CENTENNIAL, Colo. - The teenager who fatally shot a fellow student at his suburban Denver high school this month entered through a door that was supposed to be locked but had been propped open, the sheriff said yesterday.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — The teenager who fatally shot a fellow student at his suburban Denver high school this month entered through a door that was supposed to be locked but had been propped open, the sheriff said yesterday.

Even if the door had been locked, it probably wouldn’t have deterred 18-year-old Karl Pierson, Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said. “He was bent on evil, and he was bent on causing the maximum harm to the maximum number of people possible,” he said.

Pierson was carrying a shotgun, more than 125 shotgun shells, a machete and three homemade firebombs, investigators say. He shot and killed himself as Deputy Sheriff James Englert closed in on him, Robinson said.

The door Pierson used was frequently propped open, probably to make it easier to leave and re-enter, Robinson said. He said he did not know who had left it open that day.

The door was one of the few new details released yesterday at a news conference on the investigation into the Dec. 13 assault on Arapahoe County High School in the Denver suburb of Centennial.

Claire Davis, a 17-year-old senior, was shot point-blank in the face and died on Dec. 21. She had been hospitalized in critical condition. Davis’ funeral took place on Saturday, and Englert served as a pallbearer at the family’s request, Robinson said.

Englert is assigned as a resource officer at Arapahoe County High, and Robinson credits him with averting more bloodshed by rushing to confront Pierson.